counties." But the muffin of those parts
is more savoury than ours; it is immersed
in butter (by the Moors), or in oil (by the
Jews), and then dipped in honey—we
presume after the baking.

As to the origin of the name, one theory
is that mou-pain, soft bread in old French,
has become gradually changed to muffin.
But Mr. Urquhart would not accept so
simple an explanation as this. He went
back to very ancient days indeed, and
found that Athenæus made mention of the
Phœnician maphula, a kind of cake baked
on a hearth or griddle; from whence
come other derivatives, somewhat in this
order: muphula, mufula, mufun, muffin.
Then there were munphius and the
Hebrew moph, both brought into requisition.
Moreover, Mr. Urquhart ranged over the
whole scope of the ancient world, and of
oriental countries in modern times, in
search of cakes that could with any degree
of reasonableness be compared with muffins.
He met with the sfen, the lackmar, the
lackmaringof, the diebroddapson, the gassi
cadaëf, the del cadaëf, the youfka, the
kuladj, the khebes, and the neidah; and
he discoursed about them all in a manner
that would gratify any muffin-man of
inquiring mind.

The crumpet, as the slim and slender
sister of the muffin, is always associated
with it by the bakers and dealers; though
differing somewhat in character, seeing
that, while muffins are made of dough,
crumpets are made of batter. The batter
consists of fine flour, yeast, and milk, or
(in inferior kinds) water; it is poured into
a shallow, circular, heated iron pan of suitable
dimensions, and baked. Ask your
doctor whether you may eat much of this
luxury, especially if saturated with butter;
you will not have to wait long for an answer.
Some authorities opine that crumpet comes
from the French crumpate, a paste made of
fine flour, slightly baked; and that the
first syllable, crum, may possibly have
something to do with the crinkled or
crimped appearance of the surface. Indeed,
crum is nearly the form of an Anglo-Saxon
word for crinkled. The Spaniards have
crumpets, but call them by a very different
name, boñuelos.

Who first made pancakes, and what is
the pancake-bell? Here is another dainty
bread question, which leads up to results
quite as curious as those relating to muffins.
An English pancake, in our own day, is
known to most of us. It is not bread, in
our estimation; it partakes rather of the
nature of pastry; it is not considered correct
at breakfast or tea, but quite so at dinner.
Some say that the first pancakes were made
before the invention of ovens, and that they
simply belong to the general family of flat
cakes, baked on hot iron plates, or in iron
shallow pans. Very nearly five hundred
years ago, there were pancakes made in
England under the name of comadores,
which must have been toothsome and
tempting; the flour was mixed with figs,
raisins, and wine, and the cakes were fried
in oil.

But the speciality of pancakes is the
Shrove Tuesday celebration; and, more
special still, the ringing of the pancake-
bell at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of
that day. There is a meaning here, no
doubt, if we could only fathom it. Two
centuries and a half ago, or thereabouts,
there was a quaint writer known as Taylor
the Water-poet, who had his little biting
satire against everything and everybody.
Pancakes, as well as pancake makers and
eaters, came in for a share of his notice.
He says that on Shrove Tuesday, "when
the clock strikes eleven, which (by the
help of a knavish sexton) is commonly
before nine, there is a bell rung called the
pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes
thousands of people distracted, and
forgetful either of manners or humanity.
Then there is a thing called wheaten flour,
which the cooks do mingle with water,
eggs, spice, and other tragical, magical
enchantments; and then they put it by little
and little into a frying-pan of boiling suet,
where it makes a confused dinned hissing
(like the Lernean snakes in the reeds of
Acheron), until at last, by the skill of the
cook, it is transformed into the form of a
slip-jack, called a pancake, which ominous
incantation the ignorant people do devour
most greedily." Certainly the people did,
and do, devour the pancakes willingly, if
not greedily; but they by no means regard
them as ominous incantations. Eleven
o'clock, too, has still something to do with
this matter. In many parts of the centre
and north of England, the church-bell rings
out at eleven o'clock on Shrove Tuesday.
Such was the case at Doncaster old church,
before it was burned in 1853, and such may
possibly be the case in the new church.
In all these instances it is called the
pancake-bell; in some towns it rings in a
holiday for the apprentices, in others for
inhabitants generally. There is one parish
in the north where all the apprentices
whose indentures have recently expired